Bio

Dan has over fifteen years of experience in music and sound and now works freelance as a sound designer and composer.

Music
From bass player and backing singer in a local alternative rock band in the late 1990s, Dan went on to front the Hitchin ska-core septet, Weightloss. The band toured and released music DIY for almost a decade, releasing the album Our Thoughts Are Just Noise in 2007 after signing with London-based Spiky Black Cat.

For most of the 2000s, Dan hustled as a local live sound engineer, and as a general stage and stall hand around the southern festival circuit, including Rhythms of The world, Glastonbury, Hyde Park, V-Fest and Silverstone F1. By way of supplementing a career as a musician, Dan engaged in several temporary assignments over the years, working in customer service and technical support.

Events
By the time Weightloss disbanded in 2010, Dan was collaborating with the Rogue Collective in Hitchin. The collective brought together local visual artists, photographers and musicians who would throw regular parties at Hitchin’s Club 85 music venue.

The Rogue Collective brought in bands and artists from around the country to play their themed cosplay events. Dan would contribute theatrical sound design elements to support the various themed nights, such as Halloween, The Future is Broken, Rogue’s Victorian Ball, and the Rogue Masquerave. Dan co-produced a podcast to promote Rogue nights, incorporating sound design elements in keeping with the theme of each event while showcasing interviews and local music.

Radio & Podcasts
By 2012 Dan would co-present a promotional radio show ahead of each coming event with cohorts Matt Turner and Matt Sanchez, showcasing acts, with guests and recorded interviews on YOR radio, a local youth-led digital radio station. Each radio show would be subsequently released as a podcast. Dan also produced a promotional podcast in 2013 for a weekly live comedy event at Stevenage’s Cinnabar, in association with local comedian Mr Matt Smith.

Sound Design
Dan developed a passion for sound design during his radio and podcast days and considers it a natural evolution of his adventures in music and audio production. After relocating to the Midlands in 2013, Dan continued to work in local live sound and the wider festival circuit for another 2 years, after which he began studying for a B.Sc. (Hons) in sound design at Staffordshire University.

Production Sound
Dan thrives when collaborating and very much enjoys being on set. More recently he added boom operator to his roster of skills; capturing production sound for several student films, as well as his own no-budget short horror, Slake, which he wrote, directed and edited after gratefully enlisting the services of a small, passionate cast and crew. Producing Slake provided Dan with the opportunity to comprehend first hand all of the various disciplines that go into making a film beyond that of just sound. As a result, the experience deepened his respect for the art and techniques of film production. Slake went on to be exhibited at Staffordshire University’s GradEx 2018 where it won an award for the music and sound design.